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Patch 1.0.2 Fixes Ship Respawn Issue

Rare today released Sea of Thieves’ second client-side update – a 450MB download that, among other big fixes, adjusts the ship respawning system to help combat player griefing.

According to the recently released patch notes, the new system will spawn ships out of the visible view of the ship that sank it, as opposed to at the nearest Outpost (per the system pre-patch).

“When a ship sinks, we have significantly increased the distance at which the crews new ship will respawn. Ships will now respawn outside of visible view of the ship that sank them.

This is in response to lots of player feedback which highlighted that the previous spawn distance was resulting in “griefing” behaviour and stalemates at the forts!”

Pre-patch, player ships would respawn at the nearest Outpost, with the aim being that players could quickly and easily navigate to the point of their demise (often to try and loot the treasure they lost, or seek revenge on their enemy). The only problem is that this worked a little too well.

The wider community reported issues of other players respawning after sinking and re-engaging within minutes of their demise, over and over again. Rather than giving the vanquished an opportunity for revenge, it led to players being forced to battle the same foe repeatedly for what could turn into hours on end.

Some players exploited this respawn system to repeatedly harass others attempting to complete Skeleton Forts; others would purposely scuttle their ship when behind in a chase, in order to reappear at an Outpost just ahead of their target.

The new system was definitely needed, and should be a great change – victories should now feel more rewarding, and players taking down Skeleton Forts won’t have to deal with the same single enemy repeatedly.